Finance & Capital Management

Walmart increased hourly pay for employees earlier this year but top executives didn’t earn as much as they could have after the company came up short on key metrics.

Framingham, Mass. – Bernard Cammarata, 75, founder and chairman of The TJX Companies Inc., will retire June 11, 2015 after nearly 40 years with the company. Carol Meyrowitz, 61, who has served as CEO of TJX since January 2007, been a board director since 2006 and joined the company in 1983, will succeed him as chairman.

Costco shareholders are a happy lot these days between the company’s surging share price, huge special dividends and now another substantial increase in the company’s regular quarterly payout.

Late Friday, with shareholders already sitting on a 30% increase in the stock price during the past year, the company gave them another reason to smile by hiking its dividend 12.3% to 40 cents a share, or $1.60 on an annual basis, from the current quarterly dividend of 35.5 cents, or $1.42.

EBay painted a mixed financial picture for the first quarter, with lower revenue from its marketplaces division and higher revenue from its Paypal division, which the company said it plans to spin off later this year.

Major retailers, trade groups and politicians sounded a euphoric and bipartisan tone last week following the introduction of trade legislation with potentially huge implications for the retail industry and the U.S. economy.

San Jose, Calif. – eBay Inc. topped Wall Street expectations for both profit and revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2015. Growth in transactions and efforts to control expenses helped produce net income of $626 million, compared to a net loss of $2.33 billion the same quarter a year earlier.

Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores Inc., which had disappointing financial results in its last quarter, said CEO W. Bruce Johnson will leave the company Aug. 1.

The company also announced that the board of directors has commenced a search for a new CEO and has retained Heidrick & Struggles, a leading global executive search firm, to assist the Board in identifying and evaluating external and internal candidates.

King of Prussia, Pa. - Retailers anticipate accelerated growth for 2015. According to a study from eBay Enterprise, an eBay Inc. company, 72% of more than 1,000 online retailers surveyed anticipate online revenue to increase by 17% in 2015.

Confidence in commerce infrastructure is also high, with 95% of respondents stating they are very or somewhat confident their e-commerce experience meets consumers’ needs and expectations.